Beer cocktails: A cold brew with a little something extra

The Logon Cafe’s Buzz Brew is made with Southern Star Buried Hatchet stout, St. Arnolds root beer and a shot of espresso.Guiseppe Barranco/@spotnewsshooter

Whether you’re cutting a beer’s alcohol content during the long hot days of summer or enhancing a wintery stout with more complex flavors, there are several good reasons to drink beer cocktails.

Beer cocktails make hoppy beverages accessible to those who’d rather not punctuate sips of beer with puckered faces. They can offset the almost meal-like heaviness of a porter or simply play off the flavors of your craft favorite.

If the term “beer cocktail” sounds like a trend in the craft beer takeover of America, remember that the concept has actually been around for quite some time. Micheladas, black and tans, coronaritas, even the party favorite Irish car bomb are variations in the beer cocktail family.

However, it’s naive to pretend the rise of beer cocktails is independent of the craft beer renaissance. Certainly the greater variety of diverse flavors in the supermarket beer aisle has made inventive brew mixology a more challenging and rewarding feat.

While many local bars serve beer cocktails, local audiences have yet to discover the beauty of beer plus something else. Luckily, several local bars have menus to help ease customers into the beer cocktail world.

At the Logon Cafe, owner Ed Grissom centers his beer cocktail menu around one beautiful ingredient: a cold shot of espresso.

“I’ll put espresso in anything,” Grissom said.

Grissom keeps cold espresso on hand for many reasons, including the fact that a cold shot of espresso can enhance almost any stout without changing the beer’s temperature.

Currently, Grissom has two stouts on tap that pair well with a cold shot of espresso: Abita Turbodog and Southern Star’s Buried Hatchet. While Turbodog is slated to be replaced with another beer in the near future, I found the addition of espresso transformative to a beer I don’t particularly enjoy on its own.

The Logon has also started expanding its bottled collection, including Independence Brewery’s Convict Hill. With each new beer the Logon adds, the process of mixing the beers starts over. Since craft beers are often brewed with different intents, two porters paired with the same ingredients can have wildly different tastes.

For instance, private chef K.J. Bradford sampled the Convict Hill with espresso. A fan of the Jolly Hatchet, one of the Logon’s standard beer cocktails, Bradford noted the way the espresso played off the oatmeal and created an almost caramel-like taste, calling the concoction “fruity and earthy at the same time.”

Bradford makes his own beer cocktails at home, including an old fashioned with stout or smoked beers, but he’d like to see more beer cocktails outside his own kitchen. When millennials travel, experience diverse menus and return home to Southeast Texas, Bradford said, the result is a more mature palate to which local restaurants must cater.

“We will become the next Houston,” Bradford said. “It’s a progression.”